View full sizeA work boat attempts to corral an oil slick of Gulf Shores beaches in this 2010 file photograph following the Deepwater Horizon accident and resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2011, Pleasure Island business owners endure long wait for reimbursement, while others don’t see any money at all. (Press-Register/Bill Starling)

Since then, he had essentially written off the possibility that he’d ever see the money for damages to his landscaping business, Kutter’s Grounds Maintenance Inc.

This time last year, while the oil was mostly cleaned off the shores, Kutter was trying to figure out how he would ever make up for the loss.

After the oil spill, businesses and condominium developments started cutting back on expenses, like keeping well-manicured shrubs and lawns.

Then one day this month, Kutter received a letter from the GCCF saying that his claim had been approved.

This summer, his business is once again doing well, and he considers the check to be mostly a “moral victory.”

Kutter said he intends to put all the money back into the beach economy, spending it on new equipment.

Kutter won’t say exactly how much he received, but said it was somewhere around the $25,000 quick claim offered to business owners by claims czar Ken Feinberg.

“This was a victory in a different way,” he said. “They acknowledged that I am a part of tourism. They made me whole.”

In February, Feinberg said businesses that could document a financial loss because of the oil spill would be eligible for a payment. The initial policy was based on how much a business relied on seafood, beaches or the Gulf of Mexico.

Feinberg’s changes came after Kutter and several south Baldwin business leaders met with Feinberg’s top representatives in the state and helped explain how anyone who works on Pleasure Island is affected by tourism.

As of Friday, the GCCF had paid out more than $616 million to 20,164 businesses in Alabama, according to its website. That includes more than $306 million in quick claims, full review payments or interim payments, and more than $309 million in emergency advance payments.

But Greg Kennedy, also among the business leaders who spoke with GCCF officials, has a different story.

As part owner of Waves Shopping Center in Gulf Shores, he represented commercial lease space. He figured that the claim he filed was clear-cut. One of the tenants, Shakes Frozen Custard, closed down last year when tourists steered away from the coast.

Like Kutter, Kennedy said claims officials assured him that he deserved a payment. And while wary, he was initially hopeful that he’d receive the money.

He and his partners filed at least three subsequent claims — each one summarily rejected.

He’s angry — with BP, with Feinberg and with Jim Walker, the former head of Homeland Security for Alabama under then-Gov. Bob Riley, who later became the GCCF’s state representative.

Kennedy figures he’s lost roughly $25,000 in rent in the past 14 months from the one tenant.

After six more months of trying to convince the GCCF that the oil spill affected their business, Kennedy and his partners called lawyers.

“What they’re trying to do is wear you down, so you’ll just give up,” Kennedy said. “We’re convinced that if we do nothing, and we wait on BP to do the right thing, then this shopping center will be owned by the bank.”

Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon, an often outspoken critic of the claims process, said he has received mixed reviews from business owners lately.

“Some are happy with what they got,” he said. “Some are OK with what they got but didn’t want to go on and fight any longer. I can’t vouch for any claim as being legitimate, but I can be upset that the process is taking far too long.”